21 Japan – The flower mat – Shugoro Yamamoto (Score 7.0)

This book opens in 1768. In Japan it is the 165^th year of the Tokugawa shogunate which ran from 1603 to 1867. Tokugawa Ieharu, 10^th shogun, is ruling. He ruled from 1760 to 1786.

The Imperial House is currently led by Empress Go-Sakuramachi, (23 September 1740 – 24 December 1813), near the start of her reign which lasted from 1762 to 1771. She was the last Empress.

The story revolves round a year in the life of the Kugata, a samurai family. The protagonist is Ichi, the wife of Shinzo. Shinzo appears to have become involved in some clandestine, possibly dangerous, affairs. He has taken in a man who is clearly a fugitive, and he and others have secret meetings. These others are brought to the house covertly, and are never introduced.

Late one night there is the sound of fighting with katana, and Ichi and the family are forced to flee from the house into the countryside, leaving Shinzo and others to resist the attackers.

Shinzo is probably dead. Ichi is ready to give birth, prematurely. Her mother-in-law, Iso, is old and her brother Tatsuya is the sole support in their flight. Ichi gives birth to a girl. Later we learn an unexpected side to Tokugawa Japanese mores. A mother is expected, if required, to sacrifice her child to save the life of her mother-in-law. Nothing was said about her own mother.

We are half way through the book before we find the significance of the title. A “flower mat” is like a tatami, but twice the size. Flower mats have patterns woven into them using died rushes. The tatami are made with wick grass and are still used to floor Japanese houses. This is believed to be the original cause of the requirement to remove shoes at the threshold, and to don slippers provided by the house owners.

Ichi takes up a job weaving flower mats, as a complete beginner, intending to do so well that she can start her own company. Many samurai and their families, in later years, went into business, especially after the Meiji Restoration when the Emperors took control and the shogunate lost power, making most samurai masterless and redundant.

At the same time Japan’s three hundred and fifty years of peace was brought to an end by the threat of American, English and French invasion in the 1860s and by the consequent Satsuma rebellion against the shogunate. A few years ago this was made into a film.

Ultimately, in our story, there is a natural disaster, there are deaths, there is rebellion and there is recovery.

Altogether, though, while this story dealt to an extent with the events of the period, I was rather disappointed in the book and could only score it at six.